W/VE Islands QSO Party 2023 - K4TMC SOLP SSB Expedition

[Henry Pollock - K4TMC]

Call: K4TMC

Operator(s): K4TMC

Station: K4TMC

Category: W/VE Island Expedition

Class: SO Unassisted SSB QRO (>5 watts)

QTH: NC, Bogue Banks, NC010S

Operating Time (hrs): 12

Summary:

 Band  Ph Qs  Ph Mults  Islands

----------------------------------------

   80:    0             0              0

   40:    0             0              0

   20:   533        51             10

   15:   1              1              1

   10:   0              0              0

----------------------------------------

Total:  533       51             11         Total Score = 33,914

Club: Potomac Valley Radio Club

(Sadly, 3830scores.com does not track this contest (above facsimile only)
so I don’t know how others did…will have to wait until the results are
published on USIslands.org site.)

Comments:

The continuing travails of a one-man portable beach operations…

With BuddiHex replacement parts received just in time, I and dog Zoe headed
off on a 3-hour drive to the Atlantic Beach, NC contest site early Thursday
afternoon for another Field Day-like activity.  Man was it hot and humid!
The house is a few rows away from the crashing waves, so there is no wind
flow from the temperature differential there, and the row of homes between
block any ocean surface winds.  So, I immediately started assembling the
BuddiHex, making a couple trips back inside to cool and dry off.  At 72,
it’s tough to work when the sweat is running into your eyes. After the hex
was assembled and ready for raising (usually a 20 min max effort turned
into a 1 hour job), I decided to retreat to the inside and set up the radio
table.  After dinner, I finished unloading the car and proceeded to drive
in some guy stakes for the Mastwerks mast and two telescopic poles for the
40/20M and 80M endfed halfwave verticals.  The weather Friday was just like
Thursday, so I was up early to finish raising the hexbeam and vertical
wires.  Physically, the hex went up with no problems and with the mast
tripod on the 9 ft high upper deck, I felt good that it would play well at
30 ft above the sand dune at 15 ft ASL.  Pointed it West and went down to
the K3 and checked SWR…oops, not good on 20, 15 and 10 (did not install the
17, 12 & 6M wires).  So back out in the heat again to lower it down to
change coax, not the problem.  Checked and re-tightened the wire and balun
connections, not the problem.  Since both coax lengths have been used
several times at the beach, I checked and cleaned the contact surfaces, not
the problem.  In changing back to the newest coax, while connecting to the
balun, all of a sudden I had a bare wire that came out of the terminal lug
that attaches to the hex’s vertical feed pole. Upon examination, the wire
probably had broken back in July when the winds damaged the hexbeam feed
pole, however, the molded plastic around the wire and terminal had kept
things physically together.  Lesson learned…check things often, and
especially after a damage event.  Luckily, I had a spare balun from a
second BuddiHex that I recently acquired. So, with the hexbeam finally
working properly and raised back to its operating height, I proceeded to
work on raising the 40/20M endfed halfwave vertical.  After all of the work
on getting the hexbeam going, and getting the 40/20M vertical installed, I
made a health-based decision to forgo finalizing the 80M vertical…oh, did I
mention the several varieties of biting flies, sand spur grass and ants.  Since
my daughter and her dog were also here for a short vacation, I was able to
enjoy some time with her, and the two dogs played well together.

Now for the contest.  I was rested and at the rig ready to go at the
1200UTC start Saturday morning.  10 & 15M were basically dead, some
activity on 20, and 40 was pretty full with POTA, nets and ragchewers. I
found a clear spot near 7250 and started calling CQ.  In 15 minutes, all I
heard were some stations tuning their amplifiers on top of my CQs. So, off
to 20M I went and set up on 14248 and immediately started running stations.
 I managed to stay on for 12 of the 15 hours took a few short breaks to
stretch the legs, brew coffee and walk the dog, and maybe a total of 1.5
hours for two meals with my daughter.  I checked 10 and 15 frequently
hoping for good conditions there, but they never seemed be worth the effort
to change from 20M.  I did get lucky with one check of 15 and quickly
worked KH6LC who was running in the HI QSO Party.  By the time I tried 40
again, the KS and OH QSO Party activities had filled up the band, so I
stayed on 20 until the end at 0300 with a rate of 28 in the last hour.  I
found that having the KS/OH QSO Party congruent with the Islands QSO Party
helped get me a number of extra contacts; however, I did have to move from
my run frequency often due to QRM.  But I stayed between 14247 and 14258.  It
was interesting that after every move I would get a number of extra dupes.

Having won the QRO Expedition category for the last two years, I was trying
to defend my title, so had set a goal of 500 QSOs.  I reached my goal
around 0150, poured myself a celebratory glass of wine…and kept running.
Maybe next year I will try the QRP category.

The next planned one-man expedition will probably be the CQ WWDX SSB in
October.  The weather should be much more agreeable then.

Radio: Elecraft K3+/100w with Heil HC4 mic element

Antenna: Buddipole BuddiHex at 30 ft on 15 ft ASL sand dune; PAR 40/20
Endfed Half Wave inverted L on 40, 20 vertical

73,

Henry – K4TMC